Part 1: Slide 2

We will start beginning each week with a Kahoot! Quiz to review what we learned the week before. Your scores will be accumulated over the next 7 weeks. Prizes will be provided to the top scorers. Several additional prizes will also be awarded randomly to students who complete each of the quizzes.

• Kahoot! Instructions – See Kahoot! Instructions Deck

Last week we learned the definition of sustainability and the Global Goals, we are working towards to make it a reality. To add perspective, we are going to examine an industry that creates products we use every day. In fact, we are literally wrapped in them our entire lives.

• We’re talking about the clothes we all wear. If the world is ever to achieve the global goals, we need to understand the impacts of the resources we use the most.

Part 1: Slide 3.1

• Now ask the students the following questions – How big do you think the apparel industry is?

Part 1: Slide 3.2

• Clothing production is the world’s third biggest manufacturing industry after the automotive and technology industries.

  — House of Common Environmental Audit Committee, 2019

• It received 1.5 Trillion USD of revenue in 2021, which is larger than the GDP of over 200 countries

Part 1: Slide 4.1

• How many clothes do you think are produced every year?

Part 1: Slide 4.2

• According to the World Economic Forum, an incredible 150 billion new clothing items annually. This includes enough fabric to cover the state of California.

• To understand the impacts associated with our clothes we need to learn how and where our clothes are made. Our journey will take us around the world including stops in Asia, Middle East, Europe, South America, Central America, and North America.

• As you can see, it’s quite a complex process.

Last week we learned how are clothes are made. Today we are going to see this process in action and meet some of the people involved along the way. First, we’re going to look at the production cycle of a T-Shirt. 

While we travel around the world with this T-shirt, I have some questions I want you to keep in mind.  Listen carefully as the answers are coming up.  Make sure and write them down as we go so we can share with the class at the conclusion of the series.

• Pass out the Planet Money Makes A T-shirt Questions form to each student.

Part 1: Slide 5

• Present the Introduction Video.

Part 1: Slide 6

• Present the Cotton video (3 mins)

Fiber (5 mins)

Part 1: Slide 7

• Let’s take a closer look at Fiber, the foundation of our clothing:

  • A fiber is a long and thin strand or thread of material that can be knit or woven into a fabric.

Part 1: Slide 8

• Natural fabric fibers such as cotton, wool, hemp, and silk come from natural sources like, animals, plants or minerals.

• Synthetic or Manufactured (man-made) fibers such as polyester and nylon are made into fiber from chemical compounds called polymers (petroleum-based) and are produced in manufacturing facilities. 

• Fiber production has more than doubled in the last 20 years, and is expected to increase to 145 million metric tons by 2030, heavier than all the concrete in the whole of Manhattan.

Part 1: Slide 9

• Synthetic fibers make up over 60% of global fiber production with Polyester (52%) the most widely used fiber worldwide. Cotton is 24% of production, wool, and silk 1% each.

• The environmental impact of fibers depends not only on the type but where and how they were manufactured. The scale, geography, energy sources, chemical suppliers and waste management can highly influence the level of impact as will the final use of the fibers in different types of garments and the possibilities for reuse and recycling at end-of-life.

• *Note:

  • Polyamide is a generic term referring to a variety of different fabrics made from strings of polyamide monomers; the most famous example of one is nylon.

  • Polypropylene fabrics are non-woven textiles made from the thermoplastic polymer polypropylene (type of plastic). It’s the second most widely produced type of plastic after polyethylene. Most commonly used for items such as plastic bottles and containers, textile applications include bags, carpets, and mats.

  • Cellulose is a natural fiber obtainable from bark, wood, or plant leaves. In the textile industry, it is used as fibers such as rayon.

Part 1: Slide 10

• Natural Fiber Impacts:

  • Conventional cotton production accounts for one sixth of global pesticide usage.

  • Cotton is grown in 80 countries and covers 2.5% of all agricultural land.

    • (if it were a country it would be the 55th largest in the world, bigger than Germany or Japan).

• Synthetic Fiber Impacts:

  • 70 million barrels of oil are used annually to manufacture polyester.

  • Nylon manufacturing uses 3 times more energy than conventional cotton.

  • A polyester/nylon blend of fabric can take over 40 years to decompose.

  • 70 million trees are cut down annually to make rayon.

Part 1: Slide 11

Here are the average monthly wages of people involved in the Fiber stage of the production cycle from all around the world.

Part 1: Slide 12

• Present the Machines video (2 mins)

Yarn (4 mins)

Part 1: Slide 13

• When the fiber has been harvested or produced the next step is to spin the fibers into a yarn. As we just saw in the video, this is done by machines with rollers that draw out the strands, making them longer and thinner, and spindles that insert the amount of twist necessary to hold the fibers together. The spinning process is completed by winding the yarn on spools or bobbins.

Part 1: Slide 14

• The social impacts associated with spinning yarn primarily occur in and around the mills where yarn is spun. These include hearing loss and respiratory (lung) disease.

• Spinning workers have higher rates of a deadly respiratory disease known as Byssinosis or Brown Lung due to exposure to cotton dust, pesticides, and other dust particles.

Part 1: Slide 15

• The environmental impacts associated with spinning yarn cover the globe. Yarn production represents 28% of the apparel industry’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions due to long distance transportation of materials (to mills for spinning and weaving) and the use of coal and petroleum to power mills – which releases toxic exhaust into the atmosphere. The impacts continue with synthetic yarns as they are used and washed, releasing microfibers into the environment. Many of these fibers eventually reach our oceans.

Part 1: Slide 16

• If this continues, by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by weight.

Part 1: Slide 17

• To help reduce some of the environmental impact, here is a list of sustainable washing tips you can do at home.

Part 1: Slide 18

• Here are the average monthly wages of people involved in the Yarn stage of the production cycle from all around the world.

Part 2: Slide 1 (PDF 19)

• The core of textile manufacturing is fabric production. Fabrics can be created in many different ways, the most common being weaving, knitting or through production of non-woven fabrics. In weaving 2 sets of yarns are interlaced to form the fabric. Knitting involves forming rows of interlocking loops of yarn done by hand or special knitting machines.

• Acrylic, nylon, polyester, and spandex are examples of synthetic fabrics. Let’s briefly go through some commonly used ones to spot their differences.

Part 2: Slide 2 - 5 (PDF 20 - 23)

• The following are different kinds of synthetic fabrics and and their characteristics.

Part 2: Slide 6-8 (PDF 24 - 26)

• The following are different kinds of synthetic fabrics and and their characteristics.

Notes*

• China is the top ranked global textile exporter with a 37.6% global market share.

• 35% of microplastics in the ocean comes from synthetic textiles.

• The primary environmental impacts of fabric production occur during production, and as discussed earlier, when they are used and washed. 23kg of greenhouse gasses are generated for each kg of fabric produced.

• Fabrics made of 100% natural fibers can be comprised of 28% ‘chemicals’ by weight.

Part 2: Slide 9 (PDF 27)

• Here are the average monthly wages of people involved in the Fabric stage of the production cycle from all around the world.

Part 2: Slide 10 (PDF 28)

Once the fabric is produced, it goes through a variety of finishing processes including:

• Washing

• Dyeing/printing

• Antibacterial/anti-odor treatment

• Water repellency

• Anti-wrinkling

• Fire retardance

Part 2: Slide 11 (PDF 29)

• Washing cleans the fabric, adds strength, and prepares it for dyeing.

• Dyeing is the process where color is transferred to the fabric. About 200L of water is used to produce 1kg of dyed fabric (or 24 gallons of water for every pound of dyed fabric). Over 700,000 tons of dye was produced in 2019. 

• Printing allows the transfer of single or layered patterns and designs to fabric.

Part 2: Slide 12 (PDF 30)

• Anti-Bacterial treatments eliminate bacteria during use. This is important, as the porous surfaces of textiles tend to hold in moisture and heat, especially when close to the human body, which makes an environment that is exceptionally conducive to the growth of microorganisms.

• Water repellency keeps us dry and is added to fabrics through a coating or laminating technology. 

• Anti-wrinkling is a chemical and heat process where the molecules of the fabric are bonded together to keep them from moving and causing wrinkles.

Notes*

• The primary environmental and social impacts associated with these treatments are related to the wastewater released. 20% of industrial water pollution comes from textile treatment and dying.

• The washing of dyed/printed fabric in 2019 produced 280,000 tons of wastewater, which can prevent light penetration into waterways, killing aquatic environment.

• Wastewater can also toxify waterways, causing allergies, dermatitis, skin irritations and cancers.

Part 2: Slide 13 (PDF 31)

• Here are the average monthly wages of people involved in the Finishing stage of the production cycle from all around the world.

Part 2: Slide 14 (PDF 32)

Graphics, images, and video are great ways to describe complex subjects. Together, we are going to create our own Gallery of Sustainability. We will close each class by designing a poster that graphically illustrates what we have learned that week. Each poster will be displayed in the classroom until we have completed our gallery.